Written by Yang Hee-kyung, Jin Hyun-joo, and Joyce Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s SK Hynix on Thursday posted its best quarterly profit ever on strong sales of the Nvidia supplier’s advanced chips and said it will continue to grow its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips next year. Demand will continue to outstrip supply, he said.
The company downplayed market concerns about an oversupply of chips used in generative AI chipsets, saying that while demand was stronger than expected, production of its high-margin HBM chips was limited by technical challenges. .
Kim Kyuhyun, head of DRAM marketing at SK Hynix, said in a conference call that the demand for computing power continues to increase, saying, “It is premature to talk about a slowdown in demand for AI chips and HBM at this point.” “I think so,” he said.
The world’s second-largest memory chip maker reported an operating profit of 7 trillion won ($5.07 billion) for the July-September period, compared with a loss of 1.8 trillion won in the same period last year.
This compares to the average forecast of 6.8 trillion won by LSEG SmartEstimate, which weights analysts to be more consistently accurate.
SK Hynix said in a statement, “HBM’s sales showed impressive growth, increasing by more than 70% quarter-on-quarter and more than 330% year-on-year.”
Sales for the quarter increased 94% year-on-year to 17.6 trillion won.
“SK Hynix has reaffirmed its competitiveness in the HBM market with its market share and strong sales, as well as next year’s HBM sales forecast, and its leading position as an HBM chip supplier,” said Ko Young-min, an analyst at “SK Hynix.” will continue next year.” Daor Investment & Securities.
SK Hynix’s stock price rose 1.4% as of 0150 GMT, compared with a 0.2% decline in the benchmark KOSPI.
SK Hynix has outperformed rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology in recent quarters as it benefits most from AI-driven demand for high-end memory chips following its early entry and heavy investment in HBM chip development. There is.
Samsung stock has risen 38.5% so far this year, while Samsung stock has fallen 24.7%.
SK Hynix expects HBM sales to account for 40% of total DRAM revenue in the fourth quarter, up from 30% in the third quarter, as global high-tech companies continue to develop generation memory. , added that it expects demand for memory chips for AI servers to grow further next year. love.
Capital investment this year is likely to be in the mid to high 10 trillion won range, with a slight increase expected in 2025, said Chief Financial Officer Kim Woo-hyun.
“Many companies are competing in artificial intelligence research,” he told analysts at an earnings conference.
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SK Hynix, a major supplier of HBM chips to Nvidia, announced last month that it has begun mass production of its HBM3E 12-layer chips and plans to supply the latest products to unconfirmed customers by the end of this year.
Bigger rival Samsung earlier this month warned that third-quarter profits would be lower than market expectations, acknowledged it was struggling to make headway in supplying high-end chips and apologized for disappointing results.
(1 dollar = 1,379.9600 won)
(Reporting by Yang Hee-kyung, Jin Hyun-joo, Joyce Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Sonali Paul)
